There was a time in our history, during the age known as the common law, when judges did

not merely
interpret laws, they actually made them.

At common law, justice meant tweaking a harsh rule to reach a sensible result.

That we may feel sympathy for the defendants - that any of us might be in their place but for the grace of
God - gives us no authority to ignore the will of the citizens of Newgarth, as embodied in their duly enacted
laws.

…believes that the defendants acted lawfully because the legislature did not specifically prohibit the killing
and eating of someone under these circumstances. See infra, at 1912 (De Bunker, J.). The general
prohibition against willful killing is not enough, De Bunker tells us; the legislature had to enact an
affirmative prohibition. See id. at 1905. But the legislature also did not affirmatively prohibit killing on
Tuesday, or killing for the purpose of harvesting body parts, or killing by someone who can achieve sexual
gratification only when his partner succumbs.

In jurisprudence, procedural defenses are forms of defense challenging the legitimacy of the legal
proceeding. A party argues that it should not be held liable for a legal charge or claim brought against
them by some legal process, because it has been found such a process is illegitimate. Procedural defenses
are built into legal systems as incentives for systems to follow their own rules. In common law jurisdictions
the term has applications in both criminal law and civil law. As examples: Defendants might claim there
is something about the method of bringing them to be judged, that is unable to result in justice done
to someone in their situation. They might claim the process is incompatible with the goals of the justice
system.

(R vs. Dudley) Mr. Dankwerts, who prosecuted for the Crown in the preliminary hearing, was told that his
life would be in danger if he secured a conviction at the Exeter Assizes.
Alferd Griner Packer

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/archives/digital-copy-alfred-packer-supreme-court-case
Packer was convicted of five counts of voluntary manslaughter. Packer filed appeals on his case on
five separate occasions. Packer died on 1907. In 1980, OR 73 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, a judge
named Ervan F. Kushner tried to get Packer pardoned posthumously, but was again unsuccessful.

WE CAN SAY THIS:

The negative team will try to appeal to our emotions and say that the appellants are only victims, that
what they did—killing their companion—was unavoidable, that they had no choice in order to survive,
but that is actually not the case. What happened to them has happened many times in the past, and what
did the courts do? The courts said that defense of necessity in the crime of murder is untenable. What did
the legislature do? The courts did not create a law, or an exception, to justify…